Argument lists

[Kent M Pitman <KMP@SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA>]

    Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1986  23:25 EDT
    From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
    Subject: Argument lists

    ... Nick Gall's proposal seems to be the leading contender for a low-cost
    standard way of finding out how a function may legally be called. ...
    (function-parameter <function>)
    Returns ... six values ...
    Can everyone live with that?  If not, say so.

No. This does not assure adequately fast access to just the max and min
information for use in embedded interpreters. The other info might be
expensive to cons and it may be getting consed for no good reason. I feel
that either there should be two functions, or the function should be given
arguments saying kinds of info you wanted so that no time was wasted in
consing in situations where speed matters. This wouldn't be so essential
if implementations were always required to signal an error in an wrong
number of arguments situation -and- if we had the error system in place.
I expect the latter to happen in the near future, but am not so sure the
former will go through, so I really think fast access to just the numbers
part is important.